A midnight clear in late December,
and I couldn’t sleep,
too much anticipation of the
holiday ahead, I expect; I’m
not anxious about Christmas coming
– with or without me,
it will arrive - maybe just anxious
over the holiday itself,
not in the mood even with the
carols playing everywhere,
loud in my head in hopes of
reviving some Christmas spirit,
the spirit of Christmas past with
family gathered at my grandparent’s
farm, even the spirit of Christmas
present spent away from family,
almost just another day these
latter years, or the spirit of Christmas future,
which is harder and harder to
predict these days, Christmas such
a changed holiday for me over the
years, the required Christmas lists
I can’t come up with and getting
the shopping done earlier, finished
by Halloween to get it mailed early
for guaranteed on-time Christmas delivery –
“you know how the post office is!”,
not to mention the political correctness
of Holiday Wishes so as not to
offend, offending either way. And I wonder
if Santa has ordered early from
Amazon for on-time delivery and does
IKEA even make mangers, if I’m ever
in need of one – you never
know – though I doubt it, my need
and their availability.
against the cold and dark, bundled
up in a coat and cap and mittens,
and carefully let myself out,
careful not to wake anyone else in the house,
they able to sleep through my
restless wandering, it would seem.
Not too many places to go in the
dark of night, midnight and clear,
so I follow a well-worn path to the
water’s edge and sit myself down
on the old dock, long since pulled
out of the water, by law, and gaze
out over the lake, a thin layer of
ice newly formed on its surface reflecting
the stars and planets, the heavenly
bodies and the mythology that formed
in man’s earlier imagining,
questioning, his own answers by chance
found there in his before Christmas
funk and wandering out, sleepless, too,
on a midnight clear and looking up,
alone to think, to brood, to figure
it out, searching the heavens, as I
am now, seeking peace at Christmas,
if not for the whole world, at
least for myself, my small space in the universe.
This night’s sky has music in it,
the cosmic sound of the stars and moon singing
their mythic folk tales of their
own orbits and the earth shining below them,
hymns to the wonderment of this
peopled planet they move around, rising
and setting, aligned by the seasons
of a world of men who no longer see,
who no longer stop and wonder,
except this night, this single man, alone
and listening, questioning himself,
an anxious soul lost in the infinity
of space, and in his smallness,
open this one night to the possibilities
of the heavens, to the mythology of
the stars on a midnight clear,
a weary world in solemn stillness
lying,
long
suffering,
seeking himself,
seeking
peace.
And the voices of the stars,
blending, grow louder,
a crescendo rising in the quiet of
this midnight clear,
the words ringing out, this
love-song which they sing:
who toil along the climbing way with painful
steps and slow,
Look Now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly
on the wing.
Oh, rest beside the weary road, and hear the
angels sing!
And then it was gone, the music
silenced, and all I heard was a soft
breeze lightly blowing across the lake,
a hush, a peace descending
this midnight clear, star filled
and still, the mythology of heaven keeping watch,
as wandering out to hush the noise
of strife and war, I stopped to listen,
And with my own voice now, my own
song, I create anew this season of peace,
this season of joy, to find, not
the latest sales, the long lists of what I want,
what I think I need, but the spirit
of the Christmas message, simply put,
the angels’ song sung this midnight
clear, alone under the heavens,
dressed warm against the cold and
dark, sleepless, wandering and wondering:
Peace on the earth, goodwill to men from Heaven’s all gracious King.
